Rizin Announces Sapp vs Akebono For New Year’s

Rizin’s debut is becoming a must-watch show for all the wrong reasons.

MMAFighting-On Friday night in Japan, on a Fuji Network prime time show, Nobuhiko Takada, the pro wrestling legend who is the public face of the new Rizin promotion, announced the rumored rematch as official. The Fuji Network will be carrying Rizin on New Year’s Eve, a television show that will combine matches from shows on Dec. 29 and Dec. 31, at the Saitama Super Arena. Spike TV in the U.S. will be airing a similar show at 10 a.m. on Dec. 31, promoted as “Breakfast with Fedor,” since the return of Fedor Emelianenko will be the main event. Emelianenko’s opponent has not been announced, but in Japan, there were talks of trying to get a famous sumo or pro wrestler to face him.

I know for a fact that a decent portion of my readers are casual MMA fans. If you fall into this category, and haven’t seen Sapp vs Akebono, take five minutes out of your day and watch it.

This fight was a pretty GIGANTIC draw at the time, but after seeing the actual fight, why would ANYONE show up wanting to see a rematch between two older, slower fighters? I’ll tell you why. Because it’s going to be a trainwreck.

Akebono’s not in the WORST shape of his life, he’s actually a pro wrestler in All Japan Pro Wrestling.

His weight cut and his age offset each other, though, and I assume the fight will go EXACTLY how the fight one went. I’d bet a lot of money that Sapp is going to knock him out in the first (or maybe second) round, and we’ll all be concerned that he is dead.